


For Years Or For Hours

by mangochi



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Charles deserves to be happy and so do we, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 17:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17871629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangochi/pseuds/mangochi
Summary: “It was a nice wedding,” Charles says.The little bird sitting on the top of Arthur’s grave tilts its head and peers at him, then flutters off in a burst of chirps. Charles draws in a lungful of smoke, holds it there for a long moment until it burns, and exhales. He sets the unfinished half of the cigarette at the base of the cross, the smoke spiralling skywards like a prayer, and runs a thumb over the fading knife cuts in the wood.





	For Years Or For Hours

“You sure ‘bout this?”

“Sure am.”

“You’re _sure,_ though.”

Charles makes a show of looking around at his packed bags, his horse waiting behind him, Abigail and Jack waving from the front porch of the house. He remembers building that porch, remembers every splinter and nail, every drop of sweat that went into that porch. He’ll miss this, he thinks. He’ll miss them all in his own way. “Think I’m about as sure as I can get,” he says. “Short of already being gone.”

“Y’know you could stay,” John says, not for the first time since Charles brought up the subject of leaving. He grips Charles’ arm, right above the elbow, and Charles lets him. “You’re always welcome here, long as you like.”

“I know.” Charles extricates himself gently. He can’t really blame John, he supposes. Sadie’s more than a week gone now, ridden off to god knows where to do god knows what, and Uncle is...well, Uncle is as Uncle has always been. Charles is the only thing left, really, of how it all used to be.

“Well, I gave it a go.” John tosses up his hands, a wry twist to his mouth. “Just don’t come crawlin’ back here now when you get sick of freezin’ your balls off.”

“I’ll remember that.” Charles mounts up and looks down at John standing there, his hair cut short and his shirt tucked in crisp and tight. What a damn sight, he thinks. Look at him, John Marston, making a good and proper life for himself.

“You’ve done well for yourself, John,” Charles says. He feels like he ought to say it, though he’s probably not the one John would’ve wanted to hear it from. “For you and your family. You’ll be just fine.”

“Yeah.” John shifts his weight, tips the brim of his hat down, and suddenly the movement’s shockingly, achingly familiar. “Yeah, I know. I just wish-” He exhales hard. The sun burns down above them, tangles their shadows together on the red dirt.

“Yeah, me too,” Charles says quietly. He reaches down, and they shake hands. The sunlight catches the gold ring on John’s finger, gleaming bright and proud.

“You take care of yourself, Charles,” John says.

“Always do.” Not the truth, but John says nothing. Charles turns his horse and clicks his tongue, and he rides north.

***

_“You ever think about what comes after, Charles?”_

_Charles glances over. Arthur’s lying flat on his back in the tall, waving grass, his hands folded beneath his head as he watches the clouds pass overhead. “After what, Arthur?” he asks, when Arthur isn’t forthcoming. “After dinner? After this bounty?”_

_“After...y’know,” Arthur says vaguely. He wiggles the tip of his boot in a circle. “All this. Life, I guess.”_

_Charles contemplates the question as he finishes patching up his shirt. He’s hardly the best with a needle, but at least he can’t wiggle a finger through the bullet hole in the fabric anymore. “I don’t believe in a heaven, if that’s what you’re asking.” He used to, or maybe he only wanted to._

_“Don’t let Reverend hear,” Arthur chuckles. Out of the corner of his eye, Charles can see Arthur’s chest rise and fall with each slow, drowsy breath. If he concentrates, he almost thinks he can hear the beat of Arthur’s heart, pounding steadily along with his own._

_“What about you?” he asks. He bites off the thread and tests the new stitches. “Since you’re in the mood for philosophy.”_

_“I believe in a hell,” Arthur says thoughtfully. “So makes sense that there’s gotta be a heaven too, right?”_

_Charles doesn’t answer. Should it make sense, he wonders? Enough of this life happens senselessly, seems foolish to him to expect any different from anything that comes after._

_“Well,” he finally says, “if nothing else, it’s a nice thought.”_

***

“It was a nice wedding,” Charles says.

The little bird sitting on the top of Arthur’s grave tilts its head and peers at him, then flutters off in a burst of chirps. Charles draws in a lungful of smoke, holds it there for a long moment until it burns, and exhales. He sets the unfinished half of the cigarette at the base of the cross, the smoke spiralling skywards like a prayer, and runs a thumb over the fading knife cuts in the wood.

He remembers little of the night he carved those marks, only the weight sitting in his chest, that sickening, cold heaviness that he still feels now, pulling down at his limbs from the dark earth.

“Sadie was there. Uncle, too. And Jack- Jack’s all grown now.” Charles’s never been particularly good with children. He likes them fine, but Arthur had a way with them that makes him smile now to remember. “It was a nice wedding,” he says again. “A nice, normal wedding. About damn time too.”

Words fail him now. He looks down at the bright spill of flowers around the grave and wonders who planted the seeds there. They’re pretty, he thinks. He would’ve liked to see Arthur draw them. He drew Charles once, as they lay by the fireside in a little camp just east of Strawberry. It was a warm spring night and Charles traded him a kiss for it, the sketch folded away carefully inside his jacket afterwards.

“You should’ve seen it,” Charles says. His throat stings then, draws up sharp and tight and damn it, god damn it all, he thought that it might hurt less after all this time. “You should’ve seen it, Arthur, I-” He has to stop then, before he bursts, and he takes a deep breath. The wind catches at the grass, ripples down the mountainside in silvery waves. It’s a quiet, peaceful spot, a good place to rest. Arthur will be fine here, he tells himself. It’s just the kind of place he liked.

“I’m going north,” he finally manages. “There’s nothing left here for me.” In another life, as another man, he thinks he would’ve taken John up on that offer. Become a rancher himself, maybe, buy his own little farm somewhere and build another front porch to grow old on.

But he’s here now, standing alone on a mountaintop, and he finds that he’s tired of this land. It’s done nothing but take and be taken, and he’s more tired of it all than he can say. Maybe he’ll meet Rains Fall and his people again someday, somewhere in the cold wilderness. They aren’t his tribe, but the closest thing he had to that is buried beneath his boots, swallowed up by this damned, godless land.

He touches his fingertips to his lips and presses them to the weathered shape of Arthur’s name. The wood is warm from the sunlight, and when he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the weight of Arthur’s fingers closing around his.

“Later, Arthur.”

***

_“Don’t tell John I said this, but he can’t swim for shit.” Arthur flips onto his back, floating lazily on the surface of the lake. “You oughta try dunkin’ him sometimes, it’s always good for a laugh.”_

_“I’ll leave that to you, I think.” Charles wrings the water from his hair, pulling it over his shoulder. It’s a hot day, the air thick and shimmering with the sort of summer heat that melts and burns all at once. Most of the camp is also splashing around in the shallows, somewhere around the bend from where the two of them have hidden themselves. “He’s better at fishing, though.”_

_“Now, you stop that, I know you ain’t keen on it, either,” Arthur says, with mock grievance. Charles wades over and stands behind him, looks down into his face where the water laps at his cheeks. Upside down, Arthur’s grin looks like an odd, crooked frown._

_“I’ll dunk you,” Charles says gravely, after a long moment, and he watches Arthur’s expression morph swiftly through a series of realizations._

_“You wouldn’t-”_

_Charles bends and kisses him instead, cups his palms beneath Arthur’s shoulders and anchors him in place as the cicadas buzz in the trees above._

***

The road north takes Charles along the mountain ridge and down again, winding past rivers and hills. Some of them are familiar, some aren’t. After spending months at the ranch, there’s a startling newness to traveling by himself. He finds himself lying awake at night, listening to the rustling of the trees, the occasional hooting of an owl in the distance.

When was it, Charles wonders, that he forgot how to be alone?

He hunts a brace of rabbits and sells their pelts to a man he finds camped out at the bottom of a hill. A quiet and strange fellow, but he pays good money for one of the pelts and trades Charles a pair of winter gloves for the other.

He hears there’s solid business in the fur trade up in Canada, though the thought of the waste makes his stomach turn. There are other ways to make coin, he decides. He’s had enough of mindless killing to last him a lifetime and more. He puts the gloves in his saddlebag and rides on.

He’s dozing beneath a tree one day when the crack of a gunshot jolts him awake. It’s close enough that the sound lingers in the air, though he doesn’t see the shooter. Probably just another hunter, he tells himself. He draws his gun anyway and stands quietly, edging into the brush.

He finds the rabbit lying at the edge of a clearing, its body still warm. Its fur is soft beneath his fingers, eyes dulled in death.

There’s a quiet cough from across the clearing and Charles tenses, lifting his gun on reflex.

A dark-haired woman stands before him, watching him with a quiet wariness. Charles looks at the rifle in her hands and the experienced way she holds it, and he lowers his own gun slowly.

“Evening, ma’am.”

“Evening.” The woman doesn’t smile, but she doesn’t raise her rifle higher. “I believe that’s my rabbit.”

Charles glances down at the rabbit and the neat hole in its skull. “You’re a good shot.”

“Thank you,” she says, with unexpected grace. “I had a good teacher.”

They eye each other across the clearing, a silent measurement.

Charles bends slowly, and when the woman doesn’t shoot him for it, he picks up the rabbit by its ears and holds it out. “My name’s Charles,” he offers. “Charles Smith.”

A touch of amusement softens the woman’s mouth, and she brushes a wisp of hair back behind her ear, letting the rifle swing loose by her side. “Well, hello, Charles,” she says. “I’m Charlotte.”

Charlotte, turns out, makes a good rabbit stew. Charles lingers by the side as it cooks, holding his hat in his hands. It’s been a long time since he’s been in polite company, and he feels rusted along the edges as he stands there in the kitchen. Blunt and rubbed away over time.

“Do you make a habit of this?” he asks abruptly. “Inviting strangers in for a meal?”

“I’m hardly stupid, Mr, Smith,” she replies, without turning from the stove. “Only the ones who don’t steal my rabbits.”

“Easier ways to catch rabbits than stealing them from someone with a very large gun,” he points out.

She does turn then, a humorous gleam in her eyes. “I do enjoy dining with sensible company on occasion. Though if you have untoward intentions, I must insist that you leave.”

“Not at all.” He hesitates for a moment, then takes a seat at the table. It seems like the correct move. Charlotte gives a satisfied nod and turns back to her cooking, and a comfortable silence soon fills the room.

It feels almost familiar, in a tugging sort of way, some faint nostalgia he can’t bear to linger on.

She tells him a little of herself, as they dine, of her life in the city and her first months away from it. “It’s almost embarrassing to think back on now,” she laughs. “Oh, I thought it would all be so simple. Fishing, for one- I was taught how to shoot, but not to fish. Felt like a fool splashing about in the shallows.”

“I’ve never been much good at it,” Charles says. “You’ve already got me beat.” He takes another bite of stew. It’s good, warm and comforting in his belly. Charlotte is watching him, when he glances up afterwards.

“So where is it that you’re headed?” she asks. Charles wonders at first if she’s asking just for the sake of politeness, though something in him tells him she’s not. “Most folk tend to be passing through these parts, not staying.”

“Canada,” Charles says.

“Visiting?”

“Staying.”

“I confess, I know very little of the place,” Charlotte says. She leans forward, curious. She’s a good woman, Charles thinks. A good person. She reminds him a bit of Mary-Beth. “What compelled you to move there?”

Charles shrugs. “Figured it was time to move on.” He always has been, in some way, he supposes. Always moving.

“I know the feeling.” Charlotte looks down at her plate, contemplative. “I loved someone once,” she says. “But he’s gone now. I often think of moving myself, but...it feels right for me to stay here. In the home we made together.”

It’s a good home, Charles can tell. The house is strong, built to last, and the photographs he’s seen on the walls and furniture are clean and lovingly displayed. It’s the kind of home, he thinks with a sudden pang, that he would’ve wanted for himself eventually. But not alone, no- this is the type of home that’s meant to be shared.

He supposes he’ll have to look for another type of home now.

“I loved someone, too,” he says. “Once.” It’s harder to say than to think, but once the words are out, he finds that he can’t swallow them back. Charlotte looks at him with a quiet understanding. She doesn’t press, and they keep on eating.

After dinner, Charles excuses himself outside for a smoke. He sits down on the wooden steps of Charlotte’s front porch and lights his pipe, tipping his head back to look at the sky. The sun’s just set, and darkness is twisting in tight on itself, like a veil drawing shut.

He sits there and smokes until the night is filled with the quiet murmur of crickets and frogs, the cloudless sky glittering with starlight above.

Behind him, the door creaks open, then shuts. He hears the soft tapping of Charlotte’s feet across the porch as she comes to stand behind him.

“They’re clear, aren’t they?” Charlotte asks. “I thought it was astounding, the first time I left the city. Like diamonds on velvet.” She sits down on the step beside him, tucking her skirts carefully beneath her, and they watch the stars together. “Sometimes,” she says quietly, as if confiding to him some great secret, “I like to think that they sing.”

“Maybe they do.” Charles turns his pipe in his fingers, letting his skin warm the smooth wood. “Maybe we just can’t hear them.”

“They’ll have to sing louder, then.” Charlotte folds her hands neatly over her knees. They were soft hands once, Charles can tell, used to doing nothing more taxing than pick up the occasional needle. But he’s seen the way those hands work on a gun, and a hunting knife, and a hot iron pan. Nothing soft about those hands anymore.

Arthur would’ve liked her, he thinks.

“I met a very kind man once,” Charlotte says. “Though it’s been years since I’ve seen him now.”

“You were very lucky,” Charles says. “Not many kind men left out there.” He thinks of Micah’s body lying on the highest peak of a mountain, pecked by eagles until it’s stripped to bone. One less evil man, at least.

Charlotte smiles at him warmly. “You do remind me of him, Mr. Smith,” she tells him, as if they’re already old friends. “If you ever find yourself down south again, you’re always welcome for supper.”

“I’d like that,” Charles says. He’s surprised to find that it’s true.

***

_“How long?”_

_Arthur’s mouth is a thin, weary line. He tries a smile that Charles refuses to match, lifts his shoulders and lets them fall. “Weeks, months? Truth be told, wasn’t listenin’ much after the first bit.”_

_“You should’ve- we could’ve-” It isn’t often that Charles finds himself struggling with words. When he doesn’t speak, it’s because he chooses not to. This is something different altogether, his thoughts grappling for purchase against a sudden cold, present inevitability. His hands twitch at his sides, tighten and relax helplessly._

_“I had a dream last night,” Arthur begins slowly, hesitantly. He pauses, and Charles can only stare. Then, he shakes his head and steps close, takes Charles’ numb hands in his own and holds them until they warm. The only part of him that’s warm now._

_“If I had years, they would’ve been yours,” Arthur tells him. He grips Charles’ fingers fiercely between his own, tight enough that Charles can’t tell which of the two of them is shaking. Maybe both, or maybe it’s the earth shaking around them. It’s not right, Charles thinks. If he could make time stand still, he would freeze it then, suspend them in an eternity of possibilities. “All of ‘em, all I’ve got.”_

_“I’ll take what’s left.” Charles presses their foreheads together, closes his eyes and listens to the sound of Arthur breathing. “We should’ve gone,” he hears himself mutter. It’s senseless, he knows. They couldn’t have known, couldn’t have expected. Seems like the world is already crumbling away at the foundations, one shove away from falling into madness. If this is the final brick that falls, then so be it._

_Arthur chuckles, a quiet huff of air against his cheek. “Where would we have gone?”_

_“North,” Charles says._

***

The cabin is small, but functional, built on tall foundations to prevent it from being buried by heavy snows. “It’s yours for the winter, if you want it,” says the railroad foreman who owns the land. “Won’t even take rent. Work ain’t startin’ up before the spring thaw, anyhow, and most o’ the crew’s got family south of the border.” He stops then and gives Charles an appraising look. “Might be work for you then, if the mountain ain’t got the best of you.”

“How’s the hunting?” Charles has little interest in building railroads, but who knows what the spring would bring.

“Nothin’ to complain about.” The foreman tosses him the keys. “Watch out for bears, though, woods are crawlin’ with the damn things.”

“I’ll be sure to stay clear.” Charles has even less interest in tangling with bears.

The cabin is sparsely furnished, but it’s not missing anything he can’t build himself. He supposes he has John and Uncle to thank for the knowledge. He makes a list of what he’ll need to pick up from town, counts out his savings carefully and makes a note to stop by the bank, as well.

He chops a pile of firewood, enough to last through the next night and then some, and he busies himself with setting a few snares not too far from the property. It’s well into the afternoon when he re-emerges from the forest, breathless and smeared with dark dirt.

The air is different here, he thinks, as he sits down heavily on the front step. Colder, drier, thick with the sharpness of pine sap. He draws deep breaths of it into his lungs, lets his ribs creak with it.

He dozes off then, or he must have. When he opens his eyes again, he doesn’t remember closing them. The sky is dim and reddened at the edges of the dark treeline, the air crisp and still. He should head inside, Charles thinks, start a fire up before night finishes settling in.

He makes to rise, when a stir of movement gives him pause.

There, again, a smudge of movement at the edge of the clearing. Charles holds still, his weight held awkwardly at the balls of his feet. A bear, he thinks suddenly, with a jolt of worry, but no, the shadow is smaller than that. The wrong shape.

He’s thinking of making a move for the rifle on the inside of the door when the stag steps out of the brush, its crown of antlers stretching tall above its delicate head.

 _Oh_ , Charles thinks, all thoughts of the rifle gone. _Oh, you beautiful thing._

The stag turns its head and looks at him with dark, liquid eyes. Time stretches between them, the universe holding its breath. Charles watches it, something fluttering up to rest in his throat, pressing demandingly against the back of his tongue. For a wild, disorienting moment, he feels a weight brush against his back, a brief press of living warmth.

He lifts a hand to his shoulder blindly, then turns to look at it, the space behind him cold and empty again. If it ever wasn’t.

Above him, the emerging stars sing their silent song, lonely lights a million miles apart. The world exhales again. Charles lowers his hand and settles his weight back onto the step. In the spring, he thinks, maybe he’ll make a trip down south. The flowers will be blooming again on the mountaintop, swaying in the breeze. He’ll stop by Charlotte’s and she can show him how to fish, and John will try and get him to stay again and Abigail will laugh at the both of them. Jack might even crack a smile this time.

Across the clearing, the stag huffs a cloud of frozen breath, and it disappears silently back into the underbrush. It goes on, Charles thinks, watching the shadows the stag leaves behind. It goes on.

**Author's Note:**

> :’)  
> catch me on twitter @_mangochi


End file.
